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Crafting in SWTOR, and help rename the Jedi Wizard

Lots of cool information about Star Wars: The Old Republic today this week from Bioware. Darth Hater reports on news about crafting and PvP battlegrounds in the upcoming MMO.

The crafting sounds very cool and interesting and different. You’ll be able to send your companions out to gather materials, craft items or engage in missions and different companions will be more skilled at different areas. This is already sounding like more of a RTS approach (puts me in mind of Starcraft) and I love the idea that you can come back to your ship and catch up on what they’ve been doing while you were away.

They also say that there will be ways for players who are more involved in crafting to get deeply involved and better rewarded for it, so I’m guessing that you will also have some options to specialise your main character in that area.

I find this all very intriguing.

The PvP scenarios also sound fun, with some similarities to the battlegrounds we all know and love from numerous MMOs. At least in the sense of allowing limited numbers from each side and being objective based (presumably you’ll get some points for kills too). I am also intrigued that they felt that banners, flags and points were too game-y, and guessing that they will use similar mechanics but better dressed up in terms of the story of that battleground. (Compare Wintergrasp to Arathi Basin for an example of using banners and defense points in a more immersive way, for example).

And finally, due to the epic amount of complaining from people when the Jedi Consular caster-y subclass was revealed and named Jedi Wizard (which is, yes, kind of lame), Bioware went back to the drawing/ writing board and thought up three alternative names for the subclass. You can vote on your favourite one here (and yes, there is an option to keep the Jedi Wizard!)